When the Devil Drives (7 page)

Cabmen were a different caste, lower than Hyde Park grooms or stage coach drivers. Although Amos, being no snob, would pass the time of day with one if he met him, he had no great knowledge of their ways.

We rode on in silence for a while. I'd have liked to tell him about my other case, but was bound by my promise to Mr Clyde. Still, there was one thing we could discuss without breaking a promise.

‘I gather the Saxe Coburg brothers were paying a visit in Park Lane on Wednesday,' I said.

‘That's right. Came up early in the morning in a calash from Windsor, stopped off at Kew, then changed to a landaulet at the royal mews. Couple of nice little dark bay hackneys, offside one a bit skittish. They called at Gloucester House here.'

He could probably have found out the names of the horses for me if I wanted.

‘Did you see them yourself?'

‘No, but one of the lads happened to be going past when they left Gloucester House. Bit of a business he said there was, with a lady trying to get into the landaulet.'

I was glad to have this part of Mr Clyde's story so easily confirmed.

‘Why was she trying to do that?'

‘The lad didn't see. I heard from somebody else that she was trying to give one of the princes a letter.'

Better still.

‘You don't think it might have been for one of the gentlemen with the princes?' I said.

This was hardly breaking a confidence after all. Amos stared at me. ‘What do you mean, gentlemen with them? It was a landaulet, not a landau.'

‘Meaning?'

‘You can only get two people inside a landaulet. It was just the two princes. Private family visit without a lot of ceremony.'

This was a puzzle, although the rest of it seemed right. After a canter, Amos started talking about the devil's chariot. ‘Me and the lads reckon it's some kind of gentlemen's secret society. You know the kind, swaggering to each other like cock pheasants only with less than half the brain, daring each other to all kinds of devildom.'

‘Like the Hell Fire Club, you mean?'

‘Something like, only a new bit of wickedness. Anyway, if it's going on round the park, we'll find where it comes from and put a stop to it. These secret societies are about as confidential as a dog fight in a fairground.'

‘How will you find out?'

‘If they're not out of the devil's own stables, the horses pulling that chariot eat hay and walk on iron like any others. We'll have 'em, don't you worry.'

The grooms of Hyde Park had their own code and even the London underworld knew better than to cross them. We turned and cantered back to the Grosvenor Gate. As we reached it, the clocks along Park Lane were striking eight.

‘Get off here, if you want to,' Amos said.

I looked at him. Normally we'd ride back to Abel Yard together. Amos smiled.

‘Don't worry, I saw him waiting there.'

Amos missed nothing. I too had seen the slim figure under a tree and greeted him with a slight lift of the hand that Amos might not have noticed.

‘He's early,' I said.

‘Well, he would be, wouldn't he?'

My heart was bounding and I knew the blood rising in my cheeks had nothing to do with our sedate canter. Amos slid off the liver chestnut, helped me down and remounted. I patted Rancie's neck and handed her reins up to him.

‘Give my best respects to Mr Carmichael,' he said.

He wheeled the two horses round and went at a canter back towards the stables. Robert was at my side before they'd taken two strides.

‘I was going to go home and change,' I said.

‘I know. But I love seeing you so happy on Rancie. You're a different woman.'

‘Meaning I'm not happy the rest of the time?'

‘No, I don't mean that. You're happy when you're dancing or listening to music. Only sometimes you seem . . . well, preoccupied.'

I was tempted to add to his list of times when I was happy: ‘and walking in the park with you'. But I didn't say it out loud. I was still feeling my way with Robert Carmichael, just as he was feeling his way with the world. We'd met only four months ago in strange circumstances and since then he'd lost somebody dear to him and come close to being killed. He was now convalescent from his injury and living in London, trying to decide what to do with his life. Not long ago, I'd been in the same circumstances myself and knew how raw it felt, how open to the winds of chance.

We walked on, past the round pond that was the water company's reservoir. I'd hitched up my riding skirt to make walking easier. At this time in the morning, there was nobody to stare. That was why we'd fallen into the habit of meeting there at this hour. I couldn't invite him back to my rooms in Abel Yard. My reputation was so precariously balanced because of the work I did that a breath of scandal would topple it irrevocably. Of course, any idea of visiting his lodgings was even more out of the question. We were too newly met to have mutual friends who might invite us to dinners or parties.

‘Miles and Rosa have set the wedding date,' he said. ‘I'm off to Ireland next week.'

My heart sank. ‘You'll enjoy Ireland,' I said.

‘To be honest, I'd prefer to stay here. But I think I should be there to support Stephen. He's braced to get through it, but it won't be easy for him.'

Miles and Stephen were his half brothers. Since the lovely Rosa had originally been engaged to the elder brother, Stephen, then transferred her affections to Miles, there would be tensions behind the wedding smiles.

‘It looks as if I'll be away for three weeks, at least. Rosa's family are insisting I stay at the castle. There's talk of fancy dress balls and hunting and shooting, God help me.'

I talked to him about Dora Tilbury. I sensed that he was still uneasy about my way of earning a living, although it had led to our meeting. He might have preferred it if I were still a music teacher or had no need to earn a living at all.

We came close to Hyde Park corner and turned further into the park.

‘Liberty . . .'

(It was still sweet to me to hear him saying my name. On the very rare occasions when we were in company, even the company of Amos, I was still Miss Lane.)

‘Yes?'

‘On this Ireland business . . .'

‘You're wondering what fancy dress to pack? What about Hamlet?'

He stopped, taken aback. ‘Why Hamlet? Am I being so very gloomy?'

‘Not gloomy at all. A poor joke. Sorry.'

But it had come into my mind because I sensed that Robert had spent a long time trying to come to a decision. He started walking again, then suddenly made up his mind to speak.

‘I was wondering if you'd care to come with me.'

This time I was the one who stopped suddenly. ‘How could I? You can't simply produce a young woman the bride's family have never met and tell them to add her to the guest list.'

‘Unless you came as my fiancée.'

I daresay my mouth dropped open. I stared at him.

‘Is the prospect so very awful?' he said.

‘You're suggesting that I should pose as your fiancée, simply to—'

He looked angry. ‘I'm sorry if you think me capable of suggesting any such thing. There's no question of posing.'

‘But . . . you're . . . proposing marriage.'

‘You're surprised?'

Not entirely, but I hadn't expected it to come so suddenly. We started walking again. Part of my mind was glowing with happiness that he should have suggested it, but an older, calmer part held back. Robert wasn't ready for it. It was too early for him to know what he wanted. I'd be no true friend of his if I took him at his word and tied him to it forever.

‘So the answer's no,' he said.

‘Oh my dear, it's too early. You know that in your heart.'

He didn't argue. ‘Only too early? Not no?'

‘No. I mean yes, at least not no.'

Then, amazingly, we were both laughing. The glow of happiness grew, that he could understand me and take it without anger or bitterness.

‘So I'm condemned to an Irish castle on my own?'

We walked back together and he took my hand and said goodbye to me as usual, at the gateway to Abel Yard.

Tabby was waiting at the foot of my staircase, eager as a terrier. ‘Are we going to start looking for her then?'

At least her mind was still on Dora Tilbury, even if mine wasn't.

‘Later. There's a letter I want you to deliver first.'

I went upstairs and gave her the note for Disraeli.

‘It's for Number One, Grosvenor Gate, the house with the little round balcony. Tell them it's to be sent on to Mr Disraeli.'

When she'd gone, I walked along Adam's Mews, up Charles Street and round the corner into Grosvenor Street. Number Four was an elegant straight-fronted house with iron railings round the basement, sash windows and window boxes on the first floor with miniature box hedges, severely clipped. Mr Clyde had given me no key, nothing but the address. As I stood on the pavement looking up, something white bobbed up and down inside the window above the box plants. A maid's cap. I walked up three stone steps to the black painted front door and pulled at the bell beside it. The door was opened so promptly that the maid must have practically flung herself downstairs.

‘Mrs Lane? Good morning, ma'am.'

She spoke before I could get a word out, and gave a bob that might have been a curtsey, although there was nothing servile about her. No ingénue of a maid, this one. She was older than I was, probably in her mid thirties, plump and short, with crinkly brown hair under her cap, shrewd dark eyes in a round face and a brown mole on her right cheek. I didn't like the fact that she'd been instructed to call me Mrs. It had a kind of spurious respectability that suggested I lacked the genuine kind.

‘You're Suzette?' I said.

‘Yes, ma'am.'

The frivolous French name didn't suit her. From her voice, she was as Cockney as drizzle on pavements, and about as cheerful. She stepped back for me to enter and closed the door.

‘We're upstairs, ma'am.'

I followed her along a short corridor, past several closed doors, and up a flight of green carpeted stairs to the first landing. The house was clean and smelled of polish, but there was a lifeless air about it, like an empty hotel.

Suzette opened a door on the landing, stood back to let me go in first and waited to take my cloak and bonnet. I kept them on and looked round, hoping to find some more evidence of who Mr Clyde was. Nothing. I was standing in a drawing room, tastefully furnished but as lacking in character as the staircase. The colours were muted greens and greys, heavy curtains shutting out most of the October daylight. The piano was draped with a shawl, folded with right-angled precision as if defying anybody to lift the lid. I walked through to the next room. A small bedchamber done out in pink and grey chintz, with a four-poster bed that looked too wide for one but not comfortably large enough for two. A door next to the bed led to a tiny dressing room with a modern plumbed-in wash stand and water closet. Pink towels were folded on the wash stand, along with a fresh cake of soap. Geranium, and expensive.

‘Is everything in order, ma'am?' Suzette, not letting me out of her sight.

‘Yes, thank you. Where do you sleep?'

‘Over there, ma'am.'

From the tilt of her head, I took her to mean across the landing. Another door from the drawing room led to a dining room only just large enough for its mahogany table and four chairs. There was no sign of a kitchen. I assumed that people who lived here sent out for food.

When I went back to the drawing room, Suzette handed me a key on a silver chain.

‘To that, ma'am.'

Another tilt of the head towards a rosewood writing desk against the wall. She was clearly not one to waste words, apart from the irritating habit of ma'aming me with every breath.

‘No door key?'

‘You don't need one, ma'am. I'll always be here to let you in.'

And to report back to Mr Clyde.

‘Thank you, Suzette. You can go. I'll let you know when I'm ready to leave.'

She didn't like it, but withdrew. I unlocked the writing desk. It was as empty as a drum, apart from a note and a leather purse. The note said simply: ‘Miss Lane, for incidental expenses'. The purse contained twenty bright new sovereigns. I put five of the sovereigns in my pocket, locked the rest back in the desk and went out to the landing.

‘I'm going now,' I called.

Suzette appeared, prompt as a pantomime genie.

‘You'll want me to go with you tomorrow, ma'am. To the dress fitting.'

Ladies able to afford Madame Leman's prices would certainly take their maids to help them undress. I said I'd call for her at eleven o'clock and escaped with relief into the street.

Tabby seemed to sense my mood and didn't ask many questions on our omnibus journey to Aldersgate. Outside the yard of the Three Nuns, I explained about cabmen.

‘They're not easy to talk to because they're always looking out for a fare. The best time to catch them is when they're feeding or watering their horses. Like that.'

Two cabs were standing by the horse trough, their drivers beside them, smoking clay pipes.

‘Don't talk this time,' I said. ‘Just listen.' I wished them good morning and asked if they remembered picking up a fair-haired young lady in a blue cloak and hood around midday the Thursday before last, adding that she might have had a gentleman with her. They were polite enough but had seen no such young lady. When they'd gone, I waited and repeated the process with two more cab drivers, with the same result.